Monolith

Starting to look a bit monolithic..

More soon

First floor.. and ROOF

A few pics of the upper floor and roof

Good eh?

The house got rained on overnight, which is not ideal but it will cope alright. Soon it will be covered in black membrane, including all the openings, so the trades are going to have to work under temporary lighting. If we have a heat wave (don't laugh) I'll not envy them working inside a black box. Plenty of tea would be my advice. Actually one of the potential problems with living in this type of house is overheating in Summer. The upper floor rooms all have south facing windows as well. I think we'll need some good blinds.

Today I handed over the electrical design drawings (overly grand name for some noddy sketches) so the electrician can quote us for his part. 

More soon

Ground Floor

So it's Wednesday, the crane arrived Monday and leaves today, and progress has been nothing short of meteoric.

I've just returned from my usual lunch-time stroll to site, and the first floor is well underway. I'm told the house will be roofed and parapeted by Monday. We are beside ourselves with happy.

In the last photo above you can see the pieces of cardboard, representing our large items of furniture, which we've been using to plan where everything will go. As mentioned, this is the whole ground floor as it will be - there'll be no more walls or partitions, so living room/dining room/kitchen are all here. The staircase and downstairs loo will be behind the partition to the right. Must say, that French window is going to be impressive.

Meanwhile, instead of watching all this happen, my very grown up and responsible mrs has been pointing the remaining chapel walls..

The scraped, and the scraped not

More soon :-)

Digging

Half the house arrived yesterday on pallets. The rest will arrive Tuesday and be craned into place by a crack team of experts from McVeigh Offsite.

By Friday a house will stand where we always hoped it would. Cannot wait.

We're digging and sowing seeds all over the place. Mostly wildflowers, which will probably flower next year. It's hard work for a desk jockey, but good for my beleaguered back muscles.

The tilled, and tilled not

We had hoped to finish and sow seeds in this section adjacent to the road, but sitting here now, with a pint and a broken body, I realise it's good to know one's limits.

More soon

Progress

So progress is being made all over the shop. We now have the scaffolding inplace, inside which the house will be constructed in just two weeks time

Also the permanent steel is now the only steel, having been properly bonded to the front wall..

..and the old steel has been put to good use..

I had a little walk around at first floor level

We're now able to check out what will be the views from bedroom windows. Particularly the main bedroom, which will look out of the three windows towards Kinder Scout and Chinley Churn.

The trusty cameras are still busy time-lapsing the project from two angles, and I spend whole evenings cutting out the parts where nothing changes, preparing a nice movie for when it's all done. 

There's now a working platform to help with construction of the upper section of the house..

Lyn found some video she took in the very very early days. Shocking to think how much growth there was actually inside the chapel.

More later..

Sills

Quick pic of our newly installed sills on the North wall:

This wall has had minimal attention (aside from new sills) from our crack team of fixers, aka "The Pointer Sisters". Lyn is currently 75% finished on the South wall, and when the scaffolding is down I'll post a pic. I have to say it looks triffic already.

You can see here that the ground level on the North side has been raised to a few cm short of its finished level. 

It's all so exciting.

BTW the £1 million prize for our 20th subscriber goes to... @PattyDoran xx

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Slab

Concrete pour for the main slab was today..

Up close, the house looks too big now. We think it will change again when the walls go up. Otherwise, anyone for a badminton court?